You may have heard that Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life announced his retirement almost a year ago. Saddleback Church, a Southern Baptist Church, has already called their next pastor. How would you like to try to fill those shoes? You know that Warren has been my mentor for years. I have never met him. Yet, God has used him to influence my spiritual life and growth. Let me share with you why I have loved watching God use Rick and Kay Warren.
Warren serves and lives in Orange County California. The Orange County Association has 149 churches. Saddleback Church, by God’s grace, started 90 of those churches. They have started many more; those are just the ones in their own association. Rick is a 4th generation pastor. His great grandfather was led to the lord by Charles Spurgeon. His own father was a bi-vocational pastor all of his life. That helps explain why Warren donated all the proceeds from the best selling church growth book, The Purpose Driven Church, to bi-vocational pastors.
When Warren was a teenager, he was mentored by Billy Graham. At age 16 he was hired by the California Baptist convention to preach crusades as an evangelist. He had preached 120 crusades by the time he was 20 years old.
He has served one church his entire 42 year career as a Pastor. That church, of course, is Saddleback. Guided by the Holy Spirit of God, Rick and his wife Kay started the church from zero. God has grown the church to 78,179 members. All of them came through the 4 hour long Class 101: Membership Class. By the way, Saddleback Church had 10,000 members before they purchased any property or built their first building. They rented out stadiums and other venues until they felt God leading them to the right place to purchase property and build. The church has 9,173 home Bible Study groups. Led by our Lord Jesus, the church has baptized 56,631 new believers. In obedience to the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20, the church has sent 26,896 members on international mission trips to 197 nations. Their first goal was to take the Gospel to every nation. Done! Now they are praying that God would allow them to take the Gospel to every people group. The church works hand in hand with our International Mission Board.
He has trained over 1.1 Million pastors over the years. That is more than all 5 of our Southern Baptist Seminaries put together. He has often been recruited to be the president of one of our seminaries. His reply has always been the same: I am called to be the pastor of Saddleback Church.
He drives an old pickup truck, wears Hawaiian shirts and looks and acts like he is your favorite uncle at your family reunions. God has so protected Rick and Kay Warren from scandal. He has not kept the critics away. While the critics’ blast away, Warren leads his church family to feed the poor, help the broken, care for the widows and orphans. I almost forgot, Celebrate Recovery is a Saddleback Ministry. It is in more prisons around the world than any other prison ministry.
I suspect we have not heard the last from Rick Warren or Saddleback Church. Look what God has done. The boast is not about Rick Warren but about the miraculous work God has done using Rick and Kay Warren. In some ways, to not share this story would be to rob God of His glory. Rick Warren could not do these things. Only God could do such miracles. I pray our Father will continue to do it again and again until the entire world knows the Great Name of Jesus.
Thanks for reading this,
Pastor Tom
